Nikolai Kulemin is apparently on the trade block. GMGM likes him already, he's Russian. He could fit on our third line nicely and give us some depth. I hear from Leafs fans they want to trade him. Not a good year last year, but had 30 goals two seasons ago and 16 the year before. Toronto is just plain awful and he did miss some time so maybe he was off. He is having a decent season so far. He looks very good and fast.

Not a huge upgrade by any means but when we get guys coming it could fit nicely. The only place I don't know what to do with is Laich when Kuznetsov jumps ship. Wilson could take Crabb's spot, Forsberg could take Ward's. Don't know what we would do with Laich though.

We need to get a new GM. Any trades made by the current GM will bring more of the same crap we are seeing now.

Caps need a new vision from on high. This current muddling around isnt getting them closer to playoff prominence. Many of the cast of characters the Caps trot out on a given night have either flatlined, or are getting worse.

We can blame the lock out. I get it...."how can we expect the team to understand the new philosophies, and be good fast". Yes yes. We shouldnt expect them to be good.

McPhee hired another rookie coach. He let a lot of salary go without replacing it. We are 6m under this years cap. We have a lot of youth. We are counting on the young players to BE BETTER.

Then why do they seem so disinterested? Why are we 2 games into the season, and the players are questioning their own effort levels? How is that happening? If the players-- year in and year out now since the Montreal flame out-- cant get their juices flowing and show the effort needed...why do we still have them?

We can keep scapegoating the players out of here (Fleischmann, Sloan, Semin, Wideman are all gone....), but nothing will change when the true culprit of these lazy, talent wasting squads is still pulling the strings for the franchise.

Yes, this whole thing pisses me off. 0-2 with a bullet. But we have powerhouse Montreal coming in...we get a win, and the aura of Rose is back.

HMMMMPPPPHHHHH.

Chances are GMGM will fire Oates here if this continues. The next 3 games are tough and if the team doesn't find some passion they will be 0-6 and there will be tremendous pressure to get something done.

I agree that GMGM needs to go if that happens but worst case I surely hope that if he fires Oates then he himself will step behind the bench. I hope Ted mandates this to him. Let him try to coach this jumbled mix of players and see how he does. Maybe it will give him some perspective that constantly blaming the coach isn't the way to go.

There are no trades that will turn this team around...at least not ones I want GMGM to make.

Green was the reason our powerplay couldn't find the net last night. He's been AWFUL as the top of the umbrella. He hesitates with the puck far too much. If he's going to hold the puck up there, he needs to walk the line or the rest of the unit needs to be moving. But instead he holds it, hesitates for a few seconds, and then passes it to someone who doesn't have any better opportunities than he does because he let the PKers get reset. He's got to make quicker decisions and walk the line. One touch passes and change his angle of attack.

Green was the reason our powerplay couldn't find the net last night. He's been AWFUL as the top of the umbrella. He hesitates with the puck far too much. If he's going to hold the puck up there, he needs to walk the line or the rest of the unit needs to be moving. But instead he holds it, hesitates for a few seconds, and then passes it to someone who doesn't have any better opportunities than he does because he let the PKers get reset. He's got to make quicker decisions and walk the line. One touch passes and change his angle of attack.

I thought he walked the line pretty well and fired off some good shots..that got blocked. But then again all our point men had their shots blocked. I witnessed a different game than you did. Green was our best D last night especially in our D zone.

On another point...this is the nu NHL. Limited fighting and hitting and maximum protecting goalies and blocking shots. Thats how you have to win now it seems. Trap and collapse.

If we don't see some serious improvement by 10 games in....I'm on the suckage bandwagon. Unless they have a chance to win it all this year....another #1C prospect could potentially set this team up for many more years of success...

Backstrom-Kuznetsov
#1C-Forsberg

I'm pretty much at the point where I don't expect much from OV anymore - sure he shows flashes, but he is now just a solid first line player. I've continued to hold out hope that he would rebound, but I just don't see the magic anymore.

I thought he walked the line pretty well and fired off some good shots..that got blocked. But then again all our point men had their shots blocked. I witnessed a different game than you did. Green was our best D last night especially in our D zone.

On another point...this is the nu NHL. Limited fighting and hitting and maximum protecting goalies and blocking shots. Thats how you have to win now it seems. Trap and collapse.

Mike Green is paid $6 million to score 20 goals a year. Not have his shots blocked.

I thought he walked the line pretty well and fired off some good shots..that got blocked. But then again all our point men had their shots blocked. I witnessed a different game than you did. Green was our best D last night especially in our D zone.

On another point...this is the nu NHL. Limited fighting and hitting and maximum protecting goalies and blocking shots. Thats how you have to win now it seems. Trap and collapse.

I don't know how you could think he walked the line well. He moved only a few feet left or right from the center of the ice, and he took his sweet time doing it. Even Poti, during his single shift on the powerplay, had much greater urgency and range while in that position.

Go watch another team who runs the umbrella, and see how quickly they move the puck compared to the Caps (particularly Green). Boston uses it, for one. Dougie Hamilton is firing off one-touch passes and keeping the puck in constant motion. He's changing his position at the top of the umbrella to force the PKers to adjust their box. Green is doing neither of those.

The reason Green's shots get blocked is because he gives the defense a chance to react and get settled in. He's not launching one timers or even quick wristers. He settles down the puck, holds it for a few seconds, sizes up the defense, and then fires right into someone's shins. He needs to react faster, before the defense has a chance to get back into position.

Don't give up on Ovi just yet. He set a very high expectation bar that was near impossible to maintain with the league clamping down on his recklessness. Back off the expectations, and from the ledge.

He like many people are forced to adapt in life. He started last year and still potted 38 goals.

His RW aspirations have peoples head ready to pop but its going to take time. We may not have time this season on top of new systems, and that may well be an issue. Oates needs to see that and address it if so. But Ovi Nick X was largely solved by the league, because despite the worlds greatest chemistry between the 2, they do not create offense collectively enough to be a great line. I rarely saw set plays from the 2, it was Ovi rush in, shoot, and lets improvise!

First Ovi wants to move, now Alzner suggests moving away from Carlson.

I wish we had coaches that can figure out the obvious a little sooner. Is Alzner Green | Poti Carlson that complex or risky?

Last I checked our PP was atrocious when Green was out for the majority of the last couple years.

We were running a completely different system on the powerplay the past two seasons. It's no use to compare that to now. Green is the one who's neutering the umbrella. Look at the only chances we're getting on the powerplay. It's when Backstrom/Ribeiro find the seam and fire a cross ice pass to Ovechkin or when the puck gets down low, and someone fires a pass to the man in the slot. Nothing is coming from Green at all, other than blocked shots.

So it's not Green's fault that he has no offense anymore? Ditto for Ovechkin by the way but in Green's case he's gone from a ppg player to a complete non factor offensively. Also as a dman with offensive gifts and wheels, he should be the engine of the offense at both even strength and the PP. I haven't seen that with any regularity in three years.